When did the golden age of The Simpsons end?
nathancunn.com
nathancunn.com
I've often mused over this as well. I remember when Simpsons was first aired in the UK, there was lots of complaints over it. The WI (Women's Institute) running campaigns again the show because its content was considered harmful. People even threatening to boycott the BBC and any high street stores that sold Simpsons merchandise. Slogans like "Eat my shorts" caused massive outrage. Yet most of those people who were angered by the very concept of the show ended up watching it with their own families. And in the end the show became a victim of it's own success; it's no longer able to surprise people without going totally random. A point South Park commented on in one of their shows where Butters keeps being reminded that all of this plot ideas have already happened in the Simpsons (this was before South Park became just as tired as the Simpsons)
Now it's South Park's turn(Rick mentions "South Park did it" on Rick and Morty)
-Dan Harmon
Rick is literally designed to be the person every pretentious cynical asshole thinks they are. He exists to glamorize toxic anti-social behavior. Harmon backpedaling after the sauce thing blew up in his face isn't going to change this.
Would such a joke's lineage be perceptible or readily recognizable?
Would anyone notice or remember who made the last/next iteration of the joke, to continue the tradition?
Who defines the canonical serial sequence for this chain of jokes?
How many generations is a joke like this worth?
Would the continuation of such a joke actually be funny in the first place?
Was it ever truly funny at all?
I grew up watching the Simpsons every day. I stopped watching because I didn't like the new episodes, but also because there was nothing any of the characters could credibly do that would surprise me, or that I hadn't already seen them do.
Thanks!
I feel like South Park has managed to do both.
The Outline (somewhat ironically imho) summed it up when they said "South Park is not subversive":
For 21 seasons, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have given fake woke white
people a sense of self-satisfaction, reassuring them that they rise
above the myopia that grips the residents of South Park; that they
are subverting the establishment, rather than perpetuating it. Much
like a joke South Park made about residents of San Francisco: They
smugly inhaled their own farts.
I think the author of the Outline article just doesn't like the political stance of the show. The point about Token is in bad faith IMO - he isn't the richest guy in town as a cheap joke, but because changing a few things around from reality makes it easier to have a fresh look at the situation and have new insights. They use this technique all the time. In this case, it separates poor people problems from black people problems.
I'd say the Outline is the one that does exactly what it accuses South Park of: BS for "fake woke white people". It's just that they want to believe that their white people are more "woke" than the ones watching South Park.
Starting with the BS idea of "high-brow" criticizing what in final analysis is just a funny cartoon show -- this reeks of (real, not imagined) pretentiousness and taking things too seriously itself.
— Victor Pelevin, "Empire V"
Seems like a claim no one ever asserted about SP. Maybe Simpsons (at one point).
"Much like a joke South Park made about residents of San Francisco: They smugly inhaled their own farts."
So the non-subversive series made a subversive episode about their own smug watchers? Or smug writer found that non-subversively applicable to non-woke whites?
Your quote nails it. It is for people who want to pretend they are the smartest person in the room, largely because they watch South Park.
Not sure about today's episodes (have lost touch), but that was certainly true 20 years ago when we were watching the seasons 1-10 or so.
In my experience people criticizing others for being "pretentious" etc. usually can't fathom anyone liking anything that's either not entirely mainstream or having any second level of reading.
Heck, those people would accuse someone reading e.g. literature (something that billions all over the world have done for millennia) as "pretentious" (as if anything above Stephen King is some kind of crime).
"I was in Nashville, Tennesee last year. After the show I went to a Waffle House. I'm not proud of it, I was hungry. And I'm alone, I'm eating and I'm reading a book, right? Waitress walks over to me: 'Hey, whatcha readin' for?' Isn't that the weirdest fuckin' question you've ever heard? Not what am I reading, but what am I reading FOR? Well, godammit, ya stumped me! Why do I read? Well . . . hmmm . . . I dunno . . . I guess I read for a lot of reasons and the main one is so I don't end up being a fuckin' waffle waitress."
Bill Hicks would have been described as pretentious by people who disagree with what he says. They'd have also said his humour wasn't clever, it was just insulting, rude, and low-brow. They wouldn't be entirely wrong, but they'd be mostly wrong.
Same goes for South Park or Rick & Morty or The Simpsons. Those who disagree will find ways of protecting their world view against a trickle or tide of inconvenient or uncomfortable alternatives no matter how logically, reasonably, and / or cleverly the alternative is presented.
Really, even in off seasons they often have great episodes, they simply suffer by comparison.
If they’ve run out of non-topical ways to explore the characters, then they should end the show.
I can still enjoy the show but the high point for me was the period between seasons 3 to 9, when the surrealism and sense of adventure in the kids learning about the world was at its highest point.
Now it is just entirely topic-of-the-week and while it can do it quite well, sometimes it just falls flat.
It looks like them, but isn’t them. They occasionally have a flash of lucidity where they are back to their old selves but then that moment is gone as quickly as it came.
We cut our cord about 8 years ago and our TV has been limited to streaming and Netflix (DVDs too) My observation is that a great show seems to need 2 to 3 seasons to really find their pace, rhythm, and get it figured out. This is changing with the short season episodic content that everyone is doing now but network shows sort of need some time to find themselves. Beyond about season 7, they all fall apart in some way. I really can’t think of anything that lasted 10 plus season and wasn’t effectively a different show from s1, only the names are really the same; definitely the feelings it gives you will have changed. I really only watched Simpsons occasionally during the first 3 seasons, it’s hard to fathom it having anything in common with then now.
In the modern law&order versions, the CSI-whatever and other police shows, half of the suspect spontaneously confess without a lawyer and the other half confess after borderline torture. And the forensic analysis use magical methods that would not be believable even in Start Trek.
How about "Frasier"?
It was remarkably consistent throughout all 11 seasons, after the first handful of episodes established the characters.
To give a somewhat different perspective, I personally have a "5 season rule." Maybe it's more like 5 seasons +- 2 or something like that depending upon the show. Some shows aren't that interesting once their quirkiness wears off and other change things up enough to keep going longer.
But whatever the exact number, I just weary of the characters, the format, the style, etc. after a time of just about any show even if it doesn't decline in "objective" quality. I'm definitely not a person that wants some beloved series to go on forever. Generally if something has gotten a few seasons under its belt and wraps up in a reasonable way I'm very happy to let it go. (And this is truer than ever today when there are far more good shows on television/streaming than I watch.)
I don't find that surprising. The audience doesn't stay the same for 10 years either.
I think a good amount of Simpsons hate is nostalgia based, but the primary component is the writers. the writing of episodes like a fathers watch follows an almost Seinfeld-like formula. the best episodes always had a similar pattern.the pattern is great but gets repetitive and works best on nostalgia where you don't remember it
i can sympathize with a show on for 30 years wanting to switch up that formula even if it is less successful all the time.
By the way, I only started watching the Simpsons regularly when they were on season 15, when Fox opened up a channel in my country, so I saw the old and the new episodes at the same age. I still saw a tremendous difference, and would in fact often change the channel during the new ones.
The video everyone is referencing in this thread has an example of the possible "pattern" that you reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk&feature=youtu.be...
Excerpt from the blog post that explains the methodology:
> … we could consider performing cluster analysis on the data, essentially finding a way of grouping the episodes so that those with similar ratings are placed in groups together. A standard clustering approach would just group good episodes and bad episodes. However, I want to alter this slightly in that I only want a group to be made up of a single contiguous group of episodes; basically, if the episodes of season 4 are in the same group as the episodes of season 6, then the episodes of season 5 must also be in that group.
How silly does that sound? Part of the explicit appeal of these kinda of articles is a toy demonstration of the tool or technique mentioned in the title.
Anyhow, years later adult me sought to realize that dream, via Plex and Simpsons DVDs on Ebay. I have Seasons 1-14, but Season 12 is really the end of it. The great stuff was probably Seasons 3-9, with Season 6 being my absolute favorite.
Yeah I know the article is about actual analysis on this, but screw it, I wanted to talk about The Simpsons!
TL;DR a loss of writers and voice talent from resignations and deaths combined (probably) with the show simply running out of things to say (especially as its irreverent tone took over culture; see also: DFW’s writings on TV) led to its 1) becoming exactly the thing it was originally skewering, 2) relying too much on the “homer gets a new job” gimmick, 3) shifting homer’s Characterization significantly, and not for the better, and 4) spending an awful lot more time subjecting homer to cartoon violence.
Decline is foreshadowed in S7, proceeds rapidly from there, and the show’s wholly a shell of itself (a “zombie”) past S12. Site argues its case pretty well, worth a read.
It is obvious I'm in the minority. I don't know what people expect from the show, especially for how long it's Been on the air consistently, but for what it is, I love it. It's one of the few, actually maybe only show I look forward to.
If you haven't you should listen to The Talking Simpson's [0]. I love this podcast!
Also, if you have a cable subscription you can watch every episode on The Simpson's World website [1] (it is pretty terrible to navigate and extremely buggy though).
If The Simpson's was canceled or when, it feels like at this point it would be a pretty big deal, especially for those of us who grew up on it. Like a hell has frozen over moment. Mind boggling to put it. It's a part of our culture.
[0] http://www.lasertimepodcast.com/category/talking-simpsons/
The Simpsons had a good run, it's time to cancel it. If it's true that it peeked at season 10, then the most of the shows are produced after it's peek.
I think season 10 is a fair cutoff point.
The jarring thing about the more recent episodes is the decline of Julie Kavner's (Marge's) voice. It sounds...weak. Unhealthy. Other actors on the show have a similar problem but hers is most notable.
If you were raised in the modern era, you can get the reverse effect that some of us oldster's describe by going back and watching Season 1 in order. It is not the best season, but it was already showing a lot of the promise that would manifest a couple of seasons later, and in so many ways you'll find it is just a different show, even more clearly than if you go a couple of seasons later. (And it does have my favorite Halloween episode. I have to admit I haven't seen them all, and there were certainly some other good ones, but when it comes down to it, it is hard to beat a dramatic reading of The Raven. There's a reason this became a tradition and not just a one-off.)
The Fall of the Simpsons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqFNbCcyFkk
When did that happen? Granted I haven't paid close attention in a while, but that still seems a surprising departure, to say the least. What have I missed?
Hint: this was a joke
His "end of the Golden Era": Wild Barts can't be Broken: Jan 17, 1999
Futurama, debut: March 28, 1999
So there's your why...
The Silver Age ended when The Simpson's Movie came out. Almost no animated series survives the first movie intact.
When other shows lost their magic:
Southpark - S5 It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia - S6 Arrested Development - "S4" Deadwood - ended before its time! New Girl - S3 Big Love - S3 GoT - S7 Friends - S6 Office - S7 Workaholics - S4 The League -S4
My baseline seems to be around 5 +- 2 seasons. Saw another poster say same. Similar dynamics apply in any creative job -- the writers can get bored and complacent, early success leads to staff getting lured away, etc. Must make it extremely hard to maintain quality.
Sadley, never got around to Frazier.
I had been eagerly anticipating the episode, based on station promo spots that had teasers about the episode, and I really thought it was going to be a really good episode.
It was obvious that some extra effort was put into the animation, I had anticipated solid writing to match. It looked like it was going to be on par with a good Treehouse of Horror episode.
Instead, it turned out to be fluff. Only the trippy animation got attention, and the entire episode is built around the trippy shots. The episode lines up what might be considered the first “jerk ass” Homer incident, such that Homer eats this MacGuffin chili pepper, apropos of nothing, and why? There is no reason. It doesn’t build his character. It doesn’t reveal or change anything about Homer. And he’s the centerpiece of the whole episode, the other characters don’t figure into the plot very much, other than as sentimental plush toys. He just does it. Why is he at the chili cook off? No real reason.
So the answer is: because they (the staff) wanted to do a trippy vision quest desert sequence. And that’s it. No other alignment with the Simpsons universe. It’s just Homer trips out in the desert. Everything else is window dressing. Any tugs on the heartstrings, and appearances by the rest of the cast. The spirit animal becomes nothing, and is never seen again, in any other episode that mattered.
And so, then we have the principal violation of Homer doing drugs, and the ancillary violation of Homer “doing drugs” without actually doing drugs. The pepper is a stand-in for hallucinogenic drugs, obviously. And here we have homer trying the pepper, but for dishonest reasons. He didn’t set out to trip balls in the desert, and his character is unaware of this outcome a priori, conserving a moralistic aspect of Homer, the family man, even though, we, beyond the fourth wall, know better.
So they do this episode once, and without any explanation, or impact on continuity, and the jokes aren’t even that great. The episode isn’t very quotable, and has nothing else going for it, aside from the animation, which everyone does remember.
So, at the time, everyone said they loved this episode, but really the episode sucked, and rewatchng it decades later, it still sucks. But people remember the animation, and The Simpsons is animated, so surely this must be a “good” Simpsons episode. But it’s not.
At the time, I remember a subliminal inkling that if this episode passed muster, then more bad episodes were on the way, and I was right. The Poochie episode aired soon after, and I remember watching it at the time, and thinking to myself: “message received, this show isn’t going to be good anymore, don’t expect much else going forward... “ and it seems that was interpretted correctly.
And I remember a few choice quotes from the episode. "This is because I kicked you, isn't it? "Dogs can't talk! - woof woof - Damn straight." But maybe that's just nostalgia talking, and the fact that I spent far too much time watching The Simpsons as a kid.
I see your point, though - I can see how it's a precursor of what happened later.
That time is still a long way off.